y. No
war-songs were allowed to be sung, and all shouting and noise was
forbidden. In silence we meant to steal upon and enclose this
formidable enemy, who was as the on-sweeping locust-swarm--resistless,
numberless, devouring.

Half a day's march beyond Ncwelo's kraal, our runners came in to say
that the advance guard of the Amabuna was at hand--ten horsemen, armed
with long guns, and with them nearly as many servants of a yellow
colour, also mounted and armed. Then the King, who accompanied the
_impi_, called me aside, and together we ascended a bush-crowned hill,
whence we could see for a distance around.

For a great way the country was grown with bush about as high as a man's
head, with here and there groves of forest trees. Now, from where we
lay we could see at a long distance off the wagons of the Amabuna
creeping onward, drawn by their long lines of oxen, and behind them
herds of cattle, feeding as they travelled. But between all this and
ourselves horsemen were riding--men similar to the two whom we had seen
at that meeting of traitors by Ncwelo's Pool. They were advancing in a
double line, little knowing whither--advancing carelessly, to greet the
new King, Tyuyumane--to enslave, as they thought, a conquered nation.
Umzilikazi's eyes glowed like those of a lion whose fangs are already in
the throat of the giraffe.

"See there, Untuswa!" he whispered. "Now the game begins. Ha! ha!"

The Amabuna had arrived immediately beneath us, chattering carelessly in
their ugly and head-cleaving tongue, which sounds to us as the croaking
of many crows, and smoking _gwai_ in their wooden pipes. But we could
see what they could not--the low-lying, crouching shapes of hundreds of
dark forms, writhing, crawling like serpents, among the long grass and
thick bush around. Just then, however, the horses began to sniff
uneasily, and throw forward their ears, as though they knew that an
enemy lurked close at hand. The horsemen soon saw this, and halted; but
at that moment there advanced towards them a man--one of ourselves. It
was Notalwa.

Now, upon what followed, the King and I looked with eagerness; for
Notalwa, being only a witch-doctor, and no warrior, the Great Great One
had judged him the best-fitted to play this part, which was to detain
the Amabuna in converse while our _impi_ surrounded and stole in upon
them the more completely--promising him, in the event of failure, the
most terrible death by torture e